Holy cow. Reading these recaps I feel a lot the Impostor Syndrome. I think I'm competent on what I do, but when I see those guys it's hard not to feel really dumb.
Congrats to them !
Congrats to them !
For example, an oncologist is not expected to have the same understanding of bacteria as a microbiologist and they aren't an impostor for not knowing.
But I feel you, whenever I read the more technical posts on HN I feel the same way.
Because it comes from that special perspective of being able to xray through the entire stack, all the way down the physics of the electronics driving the thing while keeping the context of all the other layers in mind to see how different parts can be manipulated to get the results you want. I get the most enjoyment out of my work when doing this with higher level layers, but being able to do it at the hardware end must feel exhilarating, because that's really how it all works.
I find that it helps if you start with things like 8-bit microcontrollers where you're writing C code or even assembly language, yet it's simple enough to wrap your head around easily (make sure you hit the metal; a lot of people doing this start off with Arduino and get stuck with the high level libraries, but then you're not really learning anything about how it works). Then if you know a bit about digital logic, it's not hard to learn how such an 8-bit CPU might be designed. At that point you can shift to larger and larger systems while still being able to "connect the dots" from a GUI app down to NAND gates. Of course you won't know the details of the whole stack (nobody does), but you'll have enough of a big picture overview to be able to dig your way through it when it becomes necessary.
After all, all this genius did is open a nintendo switch to eventually run software made by you for free. The contrary of productive work I d say and close to parasitism.
Or so you can tell yourself when you feel down :D
I think the situation about voting is summarized pretty well by this funny rap clip form the 2016 USA elections: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=D9Qv6S_GtLo
Boston Tea Party, Union strikes/riots, guillotine.
Oligarchs slow boil the proles until they pop.
Errr, no. Just because you would have more details and everything would seem easier to understand and it's simple to sit on the couch and be like "yeah that looks simple, I could have done that", because that still glosses over the huge amount of research and the number of trails and errors the author put in not just during this project but throughout his career to get to this point where everything Just Works™ for him so he can make it look simple for everyone else.
Just like with Edison and the light bulb, even if the end result seems very simple in hindsight, the process of getting there is definitely not.
(Feynman said something like, if you can't explain it to a layman you don't really understand it.)
To add one cent: most of us have to be "productive" in a sense that requires us to use a LOT of abstractions.
The author went the other way, understanding how things work under the hood in quite a deep level.
It's truly awesome, but you also have to appreciate how abstractions have their place in modern software dev industry.